1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and system for controlling vehicles, which is able to feedback-control an actual vehicle acceleration to a target acceleration.
2. Related Art
This type of control apparatus is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-506270. According to the technique disclosed in this literature, the actual acceleration and a target acceleration of the vehicle are inputted to an operating means for operating the vehicle-mounted engine and an operating means for operating the brake, in order to feedback-control the actual vehicle acceleration to the target acceleration. Under such control, requests from the applications for various automatic controls, such as cruise control and vehicle distance (intervehicle) control, can be expressed by the target acceleration. Thus, matching of these applications does not have to be conducted for the specification of every vehicle. Specifically, the only matching that should be conducted for every vehicle is for the processing function for setting the manipulated variable of each actuator which feedback-controls the actual acceleration to a target acceleration. Thus, common applications can be mounted on the control apparatuses of various vehicles.
In the control apparatus mentioned above, the actual acceleration and a target acceleration are inputted to each of the operating means for operating the vehicle-mounted engine and the operating means for operating the brake. This may involve cumbersome and complicated processes in calculating the manipulated variables of the engine and the brake and in matching these processes, or may make it difficult to properly calculate the manipulated variables. In other words, the processes and matching of the processes may be cumbersome and complicated, which are performed to obtain a proper value in the resultant force of the torque generated by the engine and the brake, by which value the actual acceleration can be controlled to a target acceleration.
Not necessarily limited to the control apparatuses mentioned above, it is true that, more or less, common difficulties can be found in such techniques as feedback-controlling the actual acceleration to a target acceleration by operating a motive power generation apparatus for generating driving force for vehicle and a braking system for generating braking force for vehicle. The common difficulties may include: a difficulty in easily and properly performing the processes of calculating the manipulated variable for each of such a motive power generation apparatus and a braking system and in matching these processes; and a difficulty in properly calculating the manipulated variables.